Socks, A Thief, and A New Obsession

I finished the Poems socks. Or should I say, my generic sock pattern using Poems sock yarn.

They're definitely not identical twins.

I could have tried to make them the same but it would have meant pulling a lot of yarn from the ball to find the spot in the brownish colour where I started the first sock. Instead, I just started the second sock where the first one ended.

Then there was the surprise join on the leg of the second sock (on left) where the yellow interrupted the smooth gradation of the green. Then the colour sequence was reversed. Really glad I didn't bother trying to make them the same.

Progress continues to be made on my Strawberry Thief piece. I fixed the mistake from a couple of days ago and am getting the rest of the elements finished to the spot where I have decided to stop. 

I will probably make it into a pillow and stitch the other bird on the chart facing the other direction.

OR I could stitch the second bird and finish the pillow with one on each side. 

On one of the Facebook knitting groups I follow, someone posted pics of a sock knit in a helix manner - as a two-colour spiral rather than a round of one and a round of the other yarn. What is the difference, you ask? If knitting a round of each there is a definite 'jog' in the striping when going from colour to colour. 

With helical knitting the one yarn follows the other like a spiral so there is no distinct place where one colour starts and one colour ends, except right at the beginning and end. And those spots can be hidden by ribbing or slipping the first stitch of the second colour.

As usual, I watched a good YouTube video and was amazed at how easy it was to start and execute helical knitting.

I started the ribbing of the sock with the remnant of the Poems sock yarn and raided my sock yarn stash for a contrasting ball of yarn and came up with some fingering weight KnitPicks Chroma yarn in a now-discontinued colourway called Lollipop (I also have a second complete ball of this stuff).

So here are the two balls of yarn, both with really long colour gradients.

And my progress thus far.

I much prefer a ribbed leg but the full effect of the striping is better with stocking stitch. When I get to the heel, I'll do an afterthought heel so as to not discontinue the striping on the front of the sock. 

This pattern would also be great for using up ends of sock yarn.